It’s at that point that something else occurs to me, and I have to force myself to lie still, to keep my breathing even, to allow my eyes to close as if I am falling asleep. All this time, I have been assuming that the police are out looking for me, that Mum and Dad are worrying about where I am, that the wheels are in motion. But now I realise that nobody even knows I am missing. Nat will not have told anyone, of course he won’t, and it’s quite possible he has used my email address to contact Mum and Dad and spin some story about me going away for a break. Oh, if only! My body is outwardly calm, but my insides are churning and my brain is spinning. How am I going to deal with this?
I lie there for a while, my eyes closed, and eventually he gets up from his place at the end of the bed and starts moving around. I take a peek when I think it is safe, and I catch a glimpse of him carrying something from the door. It looks like a cool box, the kind you take camping. What on earth is he doing with that? The next time I look he is pulling the desk back to near its original position, and getting plates and cutlery out of the cupboard. When he starts the microwave I can’t lie there any longer, so I sit up and rub my eyes, hoping my actions are not too theatrical, and ask what he is doing. I hear the tremor in my voice and wonder if he hears it too.
“Dinner,” he says. “I promised you Christmas dinner, so here it is. Not quite as good as freshly-served, but nothing I can do about that.”
I don’t reply. The implication that all this is somehow my fault, that I could be eating Christmas dinner in my own flat if only I hadn’t been so reckless, is not one that I care to explore. I have to remember that Nat is not well. He would not be acting like this if he was in his normal state, and I must not make things worse, so I climb off the bed and go to wash my hands.
The little desk is set for two. There is only one chair in here, so he pulls up the cool box and puts one of the pillows on it. There are bright red napkins decorated with holly leaves and gold swirls, plastic wine glasses and even a tea light in a foil saucer. Then there are crackers, of course, and I have a vision of sitting here with a paper crown on my head, trying to be festive, and I’m not sure I can do it. However, I don’t seem to have much choice, as he bids me sit down and places my microwaved Christmas dinner in front of me.
“Thanks, Nat,” I say. “You really have thought of everything, but honestly, I’ll be fine to go back to my flat. We can eat this now of course, it looks lovely, but I’ve learned my lesson. You’ve shown me how vulnerable I was to attack, and you can be sure I won’t be going out again. Not without you, anyway,” I add with the best smile I can manage.
“Not now, Amy,” he says, and I can tell by his expression and his voice that this is not going to be easy. This is going to take all the patience and resolution I can muster, and I only hope I have enough.
We eat our food almost in silence. Nat is sullen, practically sulking, although I have said nothing to annoy him and certainly kept off the topic of returning to my flat, despite the fact that it is almost impossible to stop thinking about it. Eating is very difficult, especially as I still feel sick, but I force down as much as I possibly can and I’m thankful that he has obviously cooked this at home then brought it here rather than buying some dreadful supermarket offering.
“This is lovely, Nat,” I say, “but it’s beaten me. You know what my appetite has been like,” I add, hoping this will remind him that it is me who is the victim here.
“Hmm, well I thought with all your new-found independence you might have got your appetite back too,” he says, and I sense petulance in his voice. I’m sure I’m right about him. He really isn’t himself, so I ramble on again about how stupid I’ve been, how I should have listened to him, how I should’ve known Greg would never give up. He relaxes a little, picks up our plates and places them on top of the fridge.
“A little dessert?” he offers, producing two small, plastic sundae glasses. “My own version of tiramisu, not very Christmassy, but I know it’s your favourite.”
So I have to eat that too. How can I do anything else? My whole being is geared towards detecting any changes in his mood, any opportunities to persuade him to let me go, and I can’t see that rejecting his food is going to work in my favour. Normally, I would love this. It is rich and creamy, with layers of flavour and the warmth of the alcohol adding to the effect, but it is a struggle and it takes all my willpower to scrape out the last spoonful and appear to relish it. I tell him how wonderful it is, say it is the best tiramisu I have ever tasted and he seems pleased, so I have another try.
“So, shall we clear up and go now then? We can go to the flat and get back to our old routine. I’m sorry I was so stupid, but I won’t be again, really.”
“Look, can you stop, please? I’ve told you, you’re going to have to stay here for the time being. I don’t have any choice. It won’t be forever, obviously, but I can’t take any more chances and it’s affecting my work, keeping an eye on you. Do you know how much time I’ve had to take off?”
“But you don’t have to keep an eye on me! I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done, Nat, but I have to take responsibility for myself, don’t you see? I’ll be too scared to do anything now, but even if I wasn’t, even if Greg did get me, it would be down to me, not you. You don’t have to do this, Nat. I can see how it has affected you, but we can sort something out, can’t we?”
“What do you mean, ‘affected me’?” he asks. I have to back-pedal madly, talk about how much of his life I’ve taken up, talk about how I’ve expected too much of him, how much he has sacrificed. This isn’t far from the truth, he has done so much for me, but I can’t tell him what I really think, that the stress has tipped him over the edge, so I say I was talking about how his social life has been affected and I can’t bear the thought that now his work is suffering too. I think I am pretty convincing, especially as I am wound up tighter than any spring. It’s a wonder I can even string a sentence together, but it’s to no avail. Nat is adamant. I have to stay here for now, whatever that means, and then it becomes clear that he is actually preparing to go, and I panic, grab hold of him, beg him.
“Please Nat, please! Don’t do this! Don’t lock me in here again! I’ll be good, I promise. I told you, I won’t set foot outside the door if you’ll only let me back into the flat.” I’m crying now, pulling on his arm as he gathers up the remains of the meal and puts everything into the cool box. He shakes me off, then gets his coat and takes out his phone, walking round the room, holding it out in front of him from time to time, as if trying to get a signal. I follow him, clutching hold of his sleeve like a beggar in the street.
“Stop it, Amy. You’re becoming hysterical. Get a grip on yourself. You’re perfectly safe here, I don’t see what the problem is. No-one else is going to come. You’ve got food, drink, heating, lighting. I’ve made it as comfortable as possible and you’re acting as if I’m leaving you in a dungeon. You’ll be grateful one day, even if you’re not now.”
Somehow, I can’t see that happening, but I don’t want to fall out with Nat. For a start, it could be dangerous, but, also, I am still fond of him, even if he is acting completely irrationally. It’s not my fault, but it’s another case of the toxic side-effect I seem to have, as if I am carrying a chaos virus around with me and infecting everyone who gets too close. I never would have predicted this could happen to Nat, who always seemed so calm and strong, but there is no point in being angry with him now. It would be like being angry with my grandmother when she got cancer and could no longer care for my grandfather. Really, Grandma, this is most inconvenient! You know Granddad has dementia and needs you to look after him. You could have chosen a better time!
So I give up. There is no point in trying to persuade him, and I certainly don’t want him to have to physically push me away. If he is angry when he leaves, it may be longer before he comes back, so I try to pull myself together, even though I am crying, and I thank him for the food, thank him for looking after me and ask him when he will be back
.
“I don’t know, Amy. I can’t spend every spare minute I have round here. You’ve got everything you need.”
And then he is gone. I hear the lock turn, and I press myself against the door so I can listen to his footsteps, but the stairs must be carpeted and although I think I can hear a door slam somewhere below, I can’t be sure. It could be my imagination. He could be standing right outside this door, waiting to see if I do anything stupid, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I am on my own again, so I go back to the bed and sit back against the pillows as I did before.
How can I process this? When I watched the slats give way, I was terrified by the thought of Greg, or even some stranger, coming here to take possession of me, rape me, even kill me, and I don’t have that to worry about now. But Nat turning out to be my kidnapper? My whole world has been turned upside down, and now I have no-one to rescue me as my hero turns out to be the villain.
But he’s not a villain really, is he? Poor Nat. Now I have to think of him in a different way, as another one of Greg’s victims. I have to try to look at it all from his point of view, and then I may be able to find a way to reassure him. I only hope this condition he has, whatever it is, is not too serious, or he may lose all touch with reality and then it will be hopeless. But, to my admittedly untrained eye, he did not seem psychotic whilst he was here. Moody, irritated, but still recognisably Nat. Maybe there is hope yet.
***
I’ve no idea what time it is now, or how long I have slept. All the emotional upheaval seems to have finished me off, and I fell asleep sitting up on the bed, no further ahead in my deliberations. Maybe there is no point anyway. Maybe I will just have to wait and see what mood he is in tomorrow.
I decide to tidy up, to ensure that everything is orderly for when he returns. I want to demonstrate that I am calm, sensible and capable. So I wash the plates and cutlery, dry them and put them away, wipe the desk down and put the napkins in the bin. That leaves only the crackers, which we didn’t pull in the end, as even Nat must have realised this was a step too far.
I am about to open them up and take them apart, but then something stops me and I put them in the bin too. What was Nat doing with his phone? Why would he be looking for a signal just then? He didn’t make a call, or appear to text anybody, and why not wait until he got outside and he could do it in the peace of his car? He must have driven here, as he could hardly have managed that large cool box on public transport. My guess is that he was activating a camera – I saw him do it when he installed mine outside the front door – but this will be a tiny one, hidden in a corner or concealed in the furniture. Maybe there is more than one.
I can’t let him know I suspect anything, so I carry on tidying up and then I apparently kick over the bin by mistake, so the contents spill out beside the bed and I have to pick them up. As I do, I pop the crackers under the duvet and hope this won’t have been noticed. If he says anything tomorrow, I will know for certain I am being watched. This is not a comfortable thought, but now I wonder if it was the same in my flat. I wonder if I have been watched for some time, and although Nat’s motives may have been laudable, suddenly I feel creepy all over again.
I finish tidying, then I go into the bathroom and wash and brush my teeth. Now I have another problem. Normally, I would remove at least some of my clothes, and there are even pyjamas in the wardrobe if I want them, but the prospect of undressing with hidden cameras trained upon me makes me think again, so I turn off the light, slip out of my jeans and jump into bed still wearing my T-shirt. If Nat is watching he will have had a brief glimpse of my pants, but I don’t think that is the object anyway. It is an obsessive and unhealthy interest in my safety, but I don’t think he is a voyeur.
I lie still for a moment, then I move one of the crackers up the bed with my foot, slowly, until it is in within reach of my hand. Now I can work on it, and I detach the foil from the cardboard tube at one end and carefully extricate the strip. I have no idea what makes it crack when it is pulled apart, but it might be useful at some point, so I reach down and tuck it inside the elasticated edge of the mattress cover. I post the paper and cardboard under the bed, from where I can retrieve it later, but keep the gift. It is round and hard, and I bring it up close to my chest so I can look down at it. I can just about see that it is a tiny mirror in a plastic case – the sort you might keep in a handbag – and I am delighted with this. Nat must have been unaware of the quality of the gifts inside these crackers, as I repeat the exercise with the second one, and that presents me with a miniature screwdriver set. There are four of them, and they are not big enough to be any use on the furniture in this room, but I have them now and I did not have them before. That is what being here is doing to me – I look at everything and wonder how it might help me.
I tuck them under my pillow. It’s pretty dark in here, so I doubt the camera will have picked anything up unless it’s infra-red. I’m hoping I won’t need to think like this for much longer. I’m hoping Nat will see sense and let me go, but I am a prisoner regardless of who my gaoler is, and I can’t help thinking like one.
Boxing Day
It’s light outside and, incredibly, I appear to have slept quite well. I suppose exhaustion takes over, eventually. I’m beginning to get a sense of time without clocks or watches and my guess is that it has been light for at least an hour, so that would make it about 9 o’clock.
I can remember the change that seemed to happen over the Christmas holidays. In December, I’d leave the flat in darkness, it would still be dark when I arrived at school and dark by the time I got home. But once the new term started, I would see the grey light appearing over the rooftops as I pulled into the car park and it would be light by the time the students started to saunter in. I lie back and wonder if I will ever have those times back again, and then I get a huge rush of anxiety as it all comes flooding back. Nat, and what he has done. Nat’s mental health, which is clearly fragile and upon which everything depends. I resolve to do nothing to upset him today, to act as if I am some sort of a guest and happy to be here. That will not be easy, but I have to keep him on side.
Then I think of the cameras. I have no proof that I am correct, but today I will act as if every movement is being watched. If he is sitting at home monitoring me on his laptop, then I want him to see how sensible I am, how rounded, how unlikely to do anything dangerous or rash. I am not sure what such a person would look like, given the lack of opportunity to do anything other than stay within these four walls, but I will have to dredge up some method-acting skills from somewhere in my Drama A-level and do my best. Certainly I will have to eschew any ranting or hammering on the door today, however much I may feel like it.
On the other hand, I don’t want him to know that I know, so I will have to be careful. For example, it would be very tempting to get my clothes and dress under the duvet, but that would not look normal, so I have to think this through. I could be wrong, but I suspect the cameras are confined to this room, as there would be the constant risk of them steaming up in the bathroom and he didn’t go in there with his phone. That means that my only alternative is to take a shower, and the very prospect of that makes my heart thump. I have not summoned up the courage to return to that claustrophobic cubicle since the first day, and have managed with all-over washes, but I’m sure it would be a sensible idea in more ways than one. I haven’t been so long without a shower since the last time I went to Glastonbury, but that was different. It was all part of the experience.
So, I appear to have resolved to chance it. Nat won’t be at work, so he could arrive at any time, but I still have trouble thinking of him as a physical risk. No, the greatest risk I face is him going completely off the rails and disappearing. He has shown no sign of anything else. So I climb out of bed and choose some clean clothes from the wardrobe, taking the opportunity to hide the mirror and screwdrivers in a couple of socks as I do. Even the jeans will need changing today. My last link with my own life, my own flat, but if I am
going to appear to be calm and matter of fact, wearing dirty clothes is not going to add to that impression.
I take the clothes through into the tiny bathroom and shower quickly. I know that I would not normally choose to dress in such a confined space, but I hope Nat will not think anything of it. Now I am safely back in the room, feeling better for being clean. I make some toast and coffee, sit at the desk as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and eat every last crumb. So far, so good, but now there is another problem. Apart from rinsing out my plate and mug and stowing them away in the cupboard, there is nothing left for me to do. How can I demonstrate my acceptance of this situation by sitting on the bed?
I think about what I would do if I was back at the flat. That makes me sad, but I force myself to concentrate. Apart from trawling through stalking websites on my laptop, or following the online lives of my ex-friends, how would I fill my time? Well, for a start, there would be washing to do, and Nat will know that if he has been watching me in the flat. So I go to the wardrobe and pull the pile of dirty clothes onto the floor, where I separate it into lights and darks, just as I would at home. I don’t have a washing machine, but I can talk to Nat about that later, as the basin is too small for anything other than underwear. I put the two piles back into the wardrobe and sit down again. That must have taken all of five minutes and I am going to be hard-pressed to fill much of the day in this way, but I go to the bathroom and clean the basin and shower, then I wipe every available surface in the room. I suppose about an hour has passed. Nothing looks especially different, as it was perfectly clean before, but if Nat has been watching, this can’t have failed to impress.
The Butterfly Effect Page 16